Barry Tompkins: A shove that pushed a lot of buttons

Bay Area sportscaster Barry Tompkins sits in a restaurant on Monday, Aug. 22, 2011, in Fairfax, Calif. He began his career in San Francisco in 1965 and has worked for HBO and Fox Sports Net. He is known for his work as a boxing commentator, but has covered football and other sports. He lives nearby in Ross.
(IJ photo/Frankie Frost
Frankie Frost

IT'S BEEN A WEEK now since the "shove heard round the world," and I find myself bothered on about it on 100 different fronts.

The first is that I'm really sorry that it happened because the trickle-down effect is bad for everyone. The last is that we simply must stop regurgitating it.

For those of you too taken with more vital things like ear hair removal and the bulb planting season, I'm talking about UC Berkeley basketball coach Mike Montgomery's angry shove of his star player Allen Crabbe during a time out in last Sunday night's basketball game against USC at Haas Pavilion.

Let me begin with the obvious — I absolutely don't condone the act by Montgomery or any other coach of putting his hands on a player in any sort of angry manner. Neither does Montgomery. So I'm not defending the act, but rather the fallout.

I've known Montgomery for about 25 years, personally and professionally. He is an intense guy and, in terms of basketball intelligence, a genius. If anybody had asked me who I thought would be the last person in America to shove a student athlete I would have listed Montgomery in the bottom 10.

Crabbe is a student athlete with emphasis on both words. He is a good, smart kid with immense talent who comes from a loving and nurturing family in Southern California.

Montgomery always knew whom he could push to greater heights and how to push them. This time, he pushed too far.

I know Montgomery, and I know how bad he felt when he realized what had actually transpired. I don't think he did know until the hue and cry of the next day.

It was bad, it should never have happened, and it will always be an addendum to the accomplishments of coach Montgomery. But, it was dealt with swiftly by the university, by the Pac-12 Conference and by the parties involved — whatever that penance might be.

But a coach shoving a player is talk-show fodder these days, not just in the moments and day that follow, but as long as it earns ratings numbers by callers' rants and raves.

ESPN drives the bus these days. I remember years ago when former ABC News anchor David Brinkley made the eye-opening statement that "News is what we say it is." If the networks don't broadcast it, it's not news.

This went from an incident in an innocuous basketball game to ESPN's website where it stayed for two days, fueling every sports talk show in America to chew on it and provide fodder for every parent, coach, student athlete and Joe Six Pack to pontificate upon.

For me — knowing all the parties — it should have been over in a day and a half. Montgomery's mea culpa was heartfelt, not written by some PR flack putting words in his mouth that he never for a moment considered. I know that this will be a personal scar on a good man for the rest of his life.

The victim, Crabbe, and his family took what was absolutely the high road. "It was a spur-of-the-moment thing designed to get more out of the player, albeit too excessive."

Montgomery is not Bobby Knight — a bully of the highest order who doesn't feel he has to apologize for anything, ever. Crabbe is not some spoiled "gimme the ball" player who feels of himself as the second coming of Michael Jordan — coach be damned. They are two good people trying to be as good as they can be at the thing they do best.

It shouldn't have happened, but please, can't we just get back to planting bulbs?